Phonics Book

The teacher notes provide the details of the book. Some ideas of how to teach Phonics are given in the notes.

Play With Phonics

Teacher Notes

Make the teaching enjoyable. Let children enjoy repeating the sounds. Smile in the class and make the children smile and have fun.

Teach the sounds of the letters, 

b  is /ba/ Not /bee/

 c  is /ka/ Not /see/

Before teaching Phonics, the sounds of the letters, children should be able to understand English and speak a little bit. So give instructions in English.

Examples:

Stand up. Sit down. Come in. Go out.

Jump. Laugh. Cry. Make faces.

Touch your nose. Show me your ears.

Raise your right hand. Touch your head with your left hand.

Pick up the paper. Place it on the table.

Open your bag and take out the English book.

Read this word and write it in your notebook. 

Before learning Phonics children should know many words in English. Use pictures, classroom objects and things in your surroundings to introduce words.

First tell them what the object is. Then ask a question. After that answer the question yourself. Check if children are paying attention. Ask the question again. This time children will reply. If necessary repeat the procedure.

Example:

You tell them:   It’s a book. 

Ask a question: What is it? 

Answer it yourself: a book

Ask the children: What is it?

  They answer: a book

If they are not able to answer you answer it yourself. Then ask the question again. If the children say, ‘book’, you ask them to say, ‘a book’.

In the same way, a pen, a table, a monkey, a zebra, etc. 

Teach the plurals by asking, 'What are these?' and get the answer: books, pens, cows, etc.

Teach the colour words by asking, ' What colour is it?' and gets the answers, red, green, blue, etc.

You can also teach, 'Where is the book?' and the answers 'on the table', 'under the chair', 'in the bag', etc.

After the children learn about a 100 words start with phonics. Remember you are only asking the children to speak. No writing before they learn to read.

For Phonics it is useful to start with /b/ sound as there are many objects in class that start with this sound. For example, you can use a book, a bag, the blackboard, a bottle, etc. Show these objects and talk to the children as before. Ask them the questions and get short answers.

No need to teach ABCD in the alphabetical order. No need to give the name of the letter. No need to teach capital letters first.

Start with the first page of the book and take about four days to teach each sound. Start with objects or pictures you may find and then open the book and show them the pictures there. Write 'b' on the blackboard and talk about the pictures.

Ask the children to colour the /b/ on the top of the page and colour any one of the pictures they like. Give them the choice to choose what they like.

Teach the /b/ rhyme by making them sing after you.  Once they learn the rhyme well ask them to sing with actions. Ask them to come to the front of the class, stand in a circle, do actions and sing. The rhymes are meant for making the children repeat the sound and enjoy the experience. If you are not able to sing very well, it is ok. Just allow the children sing as they like and let them enjoy repeating the sounds. You can also use the pictures in the rhymes to talk to the children and ask them to colour the ones they like.

Ask the children to write the letter in the air, on sand, on their slate, on the blackboard, etc. Finally, ask them to write in the space provided in the notebook. Draw lines on the blackboard and show the children how to write.

In the same way teach each sound. Every time write the letter on the blackboard, show objects / pictures and talk to the children, ask the children to give their own words beginning with that sound or names of their friends beginning with that sound, colour the letters and pictures, write the letters in the air, on slate and in notebook and sing the rhyme related to the sound.

Whenever you start with a new sound, revise the previous one you have already taught. Do not rush the lessons. Go slow and ensure every child has learn to read and write that particular letter before moving on to another one.

After you teach first four sounds you can ask the children to play the Phonics Games in groups of 4 or 5. Use the A box of Phonics Games.

Watch videos of how to teach and how to play Phonics Games on www.askrangoo.com.

Teach all the small letters first. The vowels are taught in words. For example to teach ‘a cat’,

write on the blackboard ‘c’ and ask the children, ‘What is it?’. They would have already learnt it by then and will say /ka/. Then leave some space and write ‘t’.

c      t

Ask the children, ‘What is it?’. They will say /ta/.

Now write a before ‘c’ and between ‘c’ and ‘t’ like this:

a cat

Draw a cat on the blackboard near the word and read it: a cat

Ask the children to read it. They will say: a cat.

In the same way teach the other words such as a mat, a rat, etc.

When you say the word ‘a cat’, it will sound like ‘ecat’, like one word. You should not stress on a. 

After you teach all the sounds and the words for the vowel sounds, you can go back to the rhymes and teach the capital letters. Ask the children to look at the top of the rhyme and note the two letters, for example, B and b. Point and tell them this is capital letter and this is small letter. Tell them we use capital letter for names. Ask them to write their names beginning with the capital letter. Tell them we use capital letters at the beginning of sentences. Make the children copy any one of the sentences they like from the rhyme. Allow them to copy different sentences as per their choice.  At this stage you can ask them to follow the lines of the rhymes with their fingers as they sing. This way they will learn to read more words. 

Enjoy teaching English and let the children enjoy learning it.

You can have a look at the book here.

Some suggestions are given in these pages. Feel free to modify as per your needs. The children should not be expected to read these pages. At the initial stages the pictures are used to talk to the children and the story is narrated by the teacher. Children are expected to read only the letter related to one sound, for example, 'b' at the initial stages. The same book can be used in Class I or II for reading purposes when the children have learnt all the sounds, the CVC words as well as the double letter words and diphthongs.